None of This Crap Works

It isn’t just the ability
to watch any episode any time I wish. It’s the years spent acquiring them and filling shelves with lines of colorful boxes, and then checking
tvshowsondvd.com to see what other sets were coming out soon. Just scanning the
titles and seasons still makes me happy even between viewings.

I like the packaging – the
photos and logos and designs of the boxes and the disc cases inside.

I like the
menu screens on each disc, especially when some effort is put into making them
appealing (the sets for Bewitched and
Top Cat are personal favorites).

I appreciate the blooper
reels and the interviews and the episode commentaries. With the best sets you
don’t just get the shows, you get some history and context for them, and why
they worked and why they sometimes didn’t.

But since I wrote that
piece five years ago, the DVD market has collapsed. Complete series sets can
now be purchased for less than a single season once cost. And the prospects are
dimming that any seasons from any shows not yet released may never be produced
at all. An official release of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet? By the time they get around to it, anyone who remembers the show will be sharing a banana split with the actual Nelson family in one of heaven's celestial malt shops. More volumes of The Love Boat, The Defenders, Room 222, or Family? We can hope, but I don't expect the news will be good. In this era of streaming services, hard copies of shows are deemed a waste
of money and space.

Will DVDs one day be as
obsolete as VHS cassettes? I hope not. Especially since streaming offers none
of the bonus pleasures of collecting DVD sets. But that is hardly my only issue
with this content delivery system.

The other night I began
watching a Netflix series called 13
Reasons Why, an adaptation of a YA novel about a high school girl named
Hannah Baker who commits suicide, and leaves behind a box of cassette tapes
explaining why she took her life, and who she blames for driving her to such a
desperate act.

Like so much contemporary
TV, the show features teenagers who are quick with a quip but world-weary
beyond their years, while the adults – parents and teachers and guidance
counselors – are largely silly and clueless. As each new character is
introduced you can almost see the producer marking boxes on his multicultural
casting checklist so no group is left out.

Still, halfway through episode
two I was intrigued by where it was going. And then, as often happens with Netflix,
the picture froze. And then a swirling red circle materialized in the middle of
the screen, with a slowly rising percentage number within the circle. When it
reached 25% it stopped, and then this message appeared: “Your device may no
longer be connected to the Internet.”

Obviously this is a problem,
especially since I have no idea which device has been singled out for derision.
Is it the television? The DISH Network box? The modem? I don’t know. All I know
is a device that was connected to the Internet a minute ago isn’t anymore, even
though I’ve been sitting on the couch the whole time and no one has touched any device suspected of failure.

As I said, this happens
often. I should call someone. Netflix? DISH Network? My Internet service
provider? I tried one and they referred me to one of the others. At least
that’s what the pre-recorded message said after I pressed 1 for technical
support. No one at any of these companies wants to talk to me about why it
sometimes takes three days to finish a 56-minute program.

So I went online for
answers – fortunately my computer was apparently still connected to the
Internet. If you’re having problems with Netflix, one site advised, try the
following:

Okay,
now you’re just putting me on. I’m reminded of the Dick Van Dyke Show episode where a practical joker calls Rob,
posing as a telephone repairman, and tells him to fix his phone he should put
it in a paper bag, take it
outside, wave it over his head, and scream like a chicken.

It’s not just that all of
this stuff was never necessary to watch television. I don’t
like feeling stupid when something stops working and I don’t know why. And I
don’t think it’s too much to ask that all of these companies get the bugs out
of their respective systems before they start charging me a monthly fee to use
them.

Right now I’m sure some of you are thinking, “What a moron.” And that’s fine. You’re right, this
is not something I know a lot about, and I don’t really care to know more about
it. For me technology falls into just two categories: “works” and “doesn’t
work.”

My DVD player always works.
I insert a disc and press play and that’s what it does. It never
stops halfway through the episode and says it can’t play the rest because the
oven timer is three minutes off. It just does
what it’s supposed to do without making excuses or trying to shift the blame to
some other appliance in my house.

“Oh, but with streaming you
don’t have to get up off the couch and find the box with the DVD and carry it
over to the DVD player and find the right disc and press ‘open’ then ‘close.’
And then when it’s over you don’t have to get up- again! – and take it out.”

Yes, what an ordeal that has
been all these years. I’m sure that coal
miners from the 1930s would feel sorry for the arduous exertion of energy
required to watch a DVD.

If streaming works for you,
mazel tov. But even if the technology were perfect, it would not surpass the
satisfaction I derive from owning hard copies of nearly all the television
shows that were a part of my younger days.

As for 13 Reasons Why, I did eventually finish it. It's a hard show to
discuss without spoiling any of its revelations. In fact, there are times it's
just a hard show to watch, period. But the performances are excellent, and it
paints a vivid but bleak picture of where our culture is now.

There were two aspects I
found particularly interesting. First, there is not one mention of God in 13
episodes. That’s not in any way a requirement for me to enjoy a program, but
you’d think its preoccupation toward inclusion might extend to at least one
character of faith, especially in a story about how to cope with despair and find
reasons to live.

The second is its implication
of the extent to which Hannah's actions were driven by those around her. As
someone who believes the concept of personal responsibility has been replaced
by a culture of safe zones, I'm not sure I am comfortable with the message the
show is sending. However, if it starts discussions about this and other topics,
it will have served a purpose beyond entertainment.

Um, will any episodes of "Santa Barbara" ever be available via Netflix's streaming service? How about classic 1980s episodes of "Days of our Lives" or "General Hospital"? To my knowledge, no Quinn Martin series have ever been made available for streaming via Netflix, Amazon Video, or Vudu.

I am still incredibly bummed that Shout Factory hasn't released additional seasons of THE DEFENDERS. You would think they would do a small production run for the sheer of prestige of honoring one of the great classic TV series.

Shout! Factory released the first season of "The Defenders" on DVD less than a year ago. I would really like an uncut version of the 1978 telefilm "Hunters of the Reef" to be legitimately released on home video myself.

I'm envious of your Bugaloos set. I passed on the thing for years figuring it would be around forever, and now that I want to show it to my son for our blog, it goes for $100-200. I wish somebody would reissue it.

Here's an option for watching your shows without a DVD player - Rip your DVDs as mkv or mp4 files, store them on your PC or on a Storage Drive (Western Digital, Seagate, etc.). Put the Plex Media Server (https://www.plex.tv/) on your PC and you can watch them any time on your PC, Tablet, Roku (or other media streaming boxes). Or you can watch them on VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html) if you don't want to stream them. I made a digital library a few years ago and sold off my DVDs except for a few faves. Makes it more convenient to watch.

Mr. Stuart, you should know that an individual has the right to rip his own DVDs for private use. I never said that these would be available to anyone but the owner. Everything I outlined is self-contained within the owner's domain.